The Loner Read online

  "Of course he did." Logan's voice dripped sarcasm.

  "He sent Suzanne some gold nuggets from the mine. She kept them in a little wooden box." She hesitated a moment before adding, "My mistake was showing them to Will. That and the map."

  "The map to the gold mine," Logan deduced.

  "Yes."

  "And the mine is somewhere in Black Shadow Canyon."

  "Yes."

  "And Will has gone to find it." Logan dragged his hand along his jaw. "What a damned fool harebrained idea."

  "He's fourteen," she said with a shrug. "Fourteen-year-old boys are full of harebrained ideas." As are sixty-eight-year-old men.

  "He's gonna get himself killed!"

  "No, he won't." She folded her arms and shot a fierce look his way. "Because you're going to save him, right? You're Lucky Logan Grey, the luckiest man in Texas."

  "Lord help us all," Logan muttered. He picked up the photograph of Will and studied it for a long minute.

  Caroline held her breath.

  Finally, thankfully, the anger drained from his expression, though frustration and concern filled his tone when he sighed, then said, "Yes, Caroline, I'll save him, but luck won't have anything to do with it."

  Caroline saw the truth of his words glowing in his eyes as he met her gaze and said, "This is all about what is right. It is about what a man is supposed to do, what fathers do for their sons."

  He excused himself after that to seek out his friends and ask their help in developing a rescue plan. Caroline sat in Willow Hill's drawing room fearing that she'd made a huge mistake.

  Logan had proved he wasn't the dirty dog she had believed him to be. He was a man of integrity. A man of purpose. And he acted as if he cared for Will already. As if he felt a real fatherly bond.

  That wasn't what she'd expected from the man she'd believed had loved her, then left her and never looked back. From everything she'd read about Logan Grey before coming to Fort Worth and based on her experience today at the bank and what she'd learned from Wilhemina Peters, she'd expected Logan to have a sense of responsibility toward Will that required he save the boy from the perils of Black Shadow Canyon. She never anticipated that he'd actually want to be Will's father.

  As the repercussions of this revelation filtered through her mind, she murmured, "Lord help us all."

  "For the love of all that's holy, this is something I never thought I'd see." Cade Hollister turned to Holt Driscoll and said, "That's three. Three! He turned down a freebie with Ella, an invitation from the librarian and he ignored a blatant proposition from twins. Identical, redheaded, brown-eyed, big-bosomed, saloon-girl twins!"

  "The twins I don't understand," Holt observed. "However, Ella never makes him pay and the librarian is married. Lucky never plays with married women."

  Cade pursed his lips, smothering a smile. "Except for the once—his own missus."

  Logan made a vulgar gesture with his hand and his two friends laughed.

  The three men sat at a table in their favorite Fort Worth saloon, the End of the Line, rehashing the events of the evening. Actually, Cade and Holt were the ones doing the rehashing. Logan was too busy brooding.

  He was a father. He had a son.

  A son who'd grown up without a father.

  "I swore I'd never do that," he muttered, staring at the foam atop his beer. He didn't want the beer. Didn't want to be here at the End of the Line. He wanted to be asleep in bed with this entire evening being nothing more than a nightmare.

  "Do what?" Cade asked, standing a poker chip on end and giving it a spin.

  Logan could hardly form the words, so much did they shame him. "Desert a child of mine."

  The other two men winced. More than anyone else, Cade and Holt understood the thought process behind the statement because they'd grown up in an orphanage along with him. They understood what it meant not to have a father. They understood that today's revelation was a kick to the gut that had knocked Logan on his ass.

  Because he was a friend, Holt tried. "It's not your fault, Lucky. You didn't know."

  "That's no excuse. She's right about that—I should have checked on her myself, taken responsibility. I shouldn't have waited for her father to contact me if there was a problem." He sat back in his chair, hard. "Problem, hell. There was a baby."

  "She could have contacted you," Cade suggested.

  "How? Stop and think about it. I didn't keep in contact with anyone those next few years. Not even you two." Guilt closed around his throat like a noose as he tried to imagine what she'd gone through. Poor thing— her apron riding high, no husband, not a nickel to her name. It must have been pure hell.

  He should have been there for her. For the boy. Instead, he'd been.. .worthless. Both to her and the boy and to himself.

  Just like in Mexico. Just like in Oklahoma. He shut his eyes. God.

  The piano player struck up a lively, upbeat tune. Logan wanted to throw his mug at him. Those years after he left the orphanage were lost years. Wasted years. He'd been a drifter, traveling from town to town, state to state, picking up odd jobs to support himself and moving on at a whim, always looking for something he never could define. Yet, in those days he'd never crossed the line. He was still a decent man when he married Caroline.

  He had not yet hit bottom when he got tangled up with the Wilson brothers down south of the Rio Grande.

  He'd never told another person about those dark months when his evil deeds had almost cost him his soul. He'd spent the past decade attempting to earn his redemption, and up until tonight, he'd believed his tab nearly paid. Now, he had to reassess.

  "Lucky's right." Holt idly shuffled a deck of cards, then dealt them each a poker hand, though they weren't playing cards. "If not for Nana Nellie, we'd have lost track of one another completely."

  Nana Nellie. Logan groaned softly at the memory. She'd be so ashamed of him today.

  Officially, Nana Nellie had been the headmistress of Piney Woods Children's Home, but in fact, she'd been the orphanage's heart and soul. She'd lived the virtues and expected no less from those in her care. Growing up, Logan had chafed against her rules and expectations and upon leaving the orphanage he'd blatantly rebelled against them. What a dumbass he'd been. The one time in his life he'd had a run of good luck was the day he'd been turned over to Nellie Jennings's care. He'd just been too young, too stupid and too insecure to see it. Nevertheless, the lessons she'd taught had seeped into his bones, and on a mean, dark night in Saltillo, Mexico, he'd remembered them.

  Standing over the body of the man—hell, the boy— he'd just killed, sickened and shamed by his behavior, he'd heard Nana Nellie's voice echo through his mind. Prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance. Kindness, generosity.

  He'd walked out of the alley, bent over double and vomited.

  It had been a warning, but unfortunately, one he'd failed to heed for another year. What that year cost him...

  For just a moment, Logan was back in Oklahoma, in that house, back with the bodies and the blood and smell of death and his own weakness. Pain flashed through him as keenly as a knife.

  Finally, he had learned. From that moment on, he'd done his best to live up to her example, and he'd been somewhat successful. He'd sworn off alcohol and made it three whole years before indulging once again. While the notion of chastity had never caught on with him, somewhere along the way he'd realized that he was happiest when he attempted to live, if not a virtuous life, then at least one where he didn't have to hear Nana Nellie's voice scolding him all the time. The way it was now.

  "A boy. I can't believe I have a boy."

  "And a wife," Holt said. "Don't forget the wife."

  "Which reminds me of a question I have." Cade leaned forward and gave Logan an incredulous look. "How the hell did you forget marrying a woman like that? Fake wedding or not?"

  "I remembered," Logan protested.

  "Not right away. Not until after you recalled the voodoo queen and the California whore."

  Lo
gan flipped over one of the playing cards his friend had dealt moments before. Considering that he'd met Stoney Wilson a couple of months after his "job" for Big Jack Kilpatrick, it was no wonder he put the whole incident out of his mind. But he would never make his friends understand unless he told them about Mexico, and he wasn't about to do that, so he didn't attempt to defend himself. He shrugged and said, "Too much whiskey after the fact, I guess."

  Definitely some truth in that.

  Holt took a long sip of his beer, then observed, "I can't get over how much the boy looks like you, Lucky. I know you're troubled by how it's happened, but at least he hasn't had to grow up trying to figure out which man in town was his daddy. That was always the worst part for me."

  "Me, too," Cade agreed. "Remember that time we decided our fathers were riverboat gamblers who worked the Sabine River and we ran off to find them?"

  "In February." Holt shook his head. "Dumbass kids. Never been so cold in my life."

  "Yeah, well, I wish he'd come looking for me instead of going after Geronimo's Treasure," Logan grumbled. "What would possess a kid to do that?"

  "Normal boyhood adventures?" Holt suggested. "He's just had a shock with his grandmother dying."

  "Maybe it's a little bit of wanting to impress his old man, too. You said Caroline told you he read about you in the papers. He learned about your exploits, your adventures. He must know you helped Dair find his family treasure. Maybe he's trying to follow in your footsteps."

  Great. That was just what he'd needed to hear. Logan snatched up the poker hand and scowled at the straight flush he'd been dealt. His son was trying to live up to a lie—Lucky Logan Grey. Wonderful. Fucking wonderful. "It's my fault that he's run off to that hellhole."

  "Did I say that?" Cade looked to Holt. "When did I say that?"

  Holt gathered up the playing cards, then shuffled them again. "The boy is fourteen and trying to be a man. Remember what we were like at that age? Some of the stunts we pulled?"

  Cade's mouth twisted in a grin. "The riverboat incident?"

  The memory brought a reluctant smile to Logan's face. "I thought Nana Nellie was gonna leave us in jail to rot. Damn, but she was mad."

  "I'll bet your woman has a temper to her." Holt dealt poker hands again, this time practicing dealing from the bottom of the deck. "Got just a glimpse of it tonight when she pegged you with that necklace of yours."

  "It's a medallion, not a necklace," Logan muttered as he tossed down the playing cards. His woman. That brought up a whole other opportunity for guilt. Again, he imagined how desperate she must have been, pregnant and penniless and alone, and the shame all but sent him to his knees.

  "Wonder what Tom Addison is doing tonight," he mused, referring to the lawyer whose services he'd utilized for his oil field investments. "Think he's at the same shindig the McBrides attended?"

  "Why?" Holt's brows arched. "You thinking about getting a divorce?"

  Logan scowled at his friend. It was a natural question, he guessed, but he didn't like it. It didn't sit well, though he couldn't exactly say why. "Divorce? On what grounds? That I'm an asshole?"

  Cade snickered. "If that is grounds for divorce, no marriage in America is safe."

  "I need Tom to write up a will for me before I head out for Black Shadow Canyon," Logan explained.

  That observation sobered the three men and focused the conversation on the future rather than the past. "So what are you thinking, Lucky?" Cade asked. "Are we waiting for the westbound train on Friday morning or are we taking the noon train south tomorrow?"

  Logan hesitated. "We?"

  "You don't think we're letting you do this on your own, do you?" Holt said.

  "I can't ask y'all—"

  "Shut up, Grey." Cade flipped a poker chip like a coin. "You're not asking. We're telling you we're going."

  Logan could not deny that the weight on his shoulders eased a bit at that. He could use their help. Holt's status as a Texas Ranger might come in handy, and Cade, a former Pinkerton man now working for himself, specialized in locating lost children. While a runaway wasn't exactly lost and they knew where the boy was headed, Logan figured Cade's skills could be of great assistance when they started tracking Will through the canyon.

  And yet, he recognized that accepting their help created a bit of a problem. "I'll be glad to have y'all watching my back, but getting you two into the canyon might be sticky. You are both too well-known."

  "And you're not?" Holt snorted a laugh. "Hell, Lucky, it'll probably be easier for us than for you. You made fools of 'em last time. They're gonna be gunning for you now."

  "Then I can't let 'em see me coming."

  "And how do you figure to do that?"

  Logan swiped at the condensation on his beer mug with his thumb. "I don't exactly know, but I have five days to figure it out and, thankfully, you two to help me do it. I think it's best to wait for Friday's train—it's a more direct route and it'll get us there almost as fast as if we left a day earlier and went through San Antoine. We can use tomorrow to buy supplies and check with our contacts to see what news has come out of there in the last week or so."

  "The Rangers should have declared war on that bunch and gone in and cleaned the place out years ago," Holt grumbled. "It goes against my grain to leave killers and thieves alone to do their dirty work just because they've holed up the middle of nowhere."

  Cade tipped his chair up on its two hind legs. "I've missed seeing that part of the world. So, it's a four-day trip to Black Shadow Canyon?"

  "About that. We take the train west, then go on horseback north to the Guadalupe Mountains."

  "When did she say the boy left?"

  "He took the train out of Artesia last Sunday. We'll be over a week behind him, but since he won't know where he's going, I'm hoping we'll make up time on him on the trail."

  "He's grown up in town. Did she say if he's a good horseman? A good tracker?"

  "We didn't talk about that. I know I should have asked a million questions, but I just... I needed time to digest the whole thing."

  Cade and Holt nodded their understanding, then in an obvious effort to lighten the mood, Holt propped his boots on the empty chair at their table and said, "I've been wondering.. .what does this do to your reputation of being the luckiest man in Texas? I can't wait to see what Wilhemina Peters does with the news. Hell, she'll come out of retirement."

  "Lord help Fort Worth if that's the case," Cade observed.

  Holt grinned, then continued, "The way I see it, some folks might think your state of luckiness just took a hard hit. After all, out of the blue, you find yourself saddled with a wife and kid. How can that possibly be considered lucky?"

  Cade flipped a poker chip into the air again and snorted. "Hell, all anyone has to do is get a gander at Mrs. Grey and they'll figure it out. Don't take this wrong, Lucky, but your lady is a looker."

  "I won't argue that."

  "And if the boy is all she told you he is, then you are doing all right there, too."

  "No thanks to me," Logan grumbled, his mood remaining bleak. "She said he's bright. I hope to God she's right about that, and I hope it's more than book smart. He'll need quick wits and keen intelligence to survive in the hellhole of Black Shadow Canyon until I can get him out."

  "Hunting a lost gold mine amongst the scum of the earth... The boy must have more nerve than a toothache," Cade said.

  Holt nodded his agreement, then added, "Let's hope he inherited your lucky streak, Grey."

  Logan didn't bother to respond to that. The whole lucky business had stuck in his craw ever since Nana Nellie first pasted the nickname on him. Out of respect for the woman he'd grown to love, he kept his opinions to himself, though he'd always wanted to ask her why she thought a person who had lost his entire family in a flood could be considered lucky. So what if his suspenders had caught on a log and kept his head above the raging waters until they receded? His entire family had died! He simply couldn't consider that being lucky.


  Logan continued to keep his mouth shut about the idea because doing so suited his purpose. While he believed that people made their own luck rather than luck falling on their shoulders like fairy dust, he did recognize that having a lucky reputation often paid off. Opponents were easier to bluff in card games if they believed in his good luck. Folks were less likely to challenge his opinions if he tied them to his good luck tendency. Most important of all, he figured his reputation lessened the number of gunfights he got involved in by at least half. Men didn't mind matching their skills, but when it came to gun luck, superstition ruled the day.

  Logan shoved back his chair and stood. "I'm going to try to catch Tom Addison. I'll look y'all up tomorrow."

  He'd gathered his hat and started for the door when a stranger's voice brought him up short. "Lucky Logan Grey! I'm calling you out."

  The piano music suddenly went quiet. As Logan turned to face a broad-shouldered stranger, he vaguely wondered when, if ever, he'd walked through a saloon paying such little attention to his surroundings. Today's events certainly had taken a toll. "Who the hell are you?"

  "My name is Bo Pilchard and I'm told that you're the man who put my brother in the hospital today."

  Today? Who had he put in the hospital...oh. Good Lord, this morning seemed like forever ago. "Was your brother attempting to rob the bank?"

  "Yes, I fear that is true. However, I made a promise to my mama that I'd have my brother's back. His brains are scrambled, so I'm afraid that puts you and me at odds. I demand retribution."

  Logan noticed that friends rose from their seats and moved into protective positions as he asked, "You figuring to pull a gun on me?"

  "No. That wouldn't be right considering it was a bank robbery and all." He held up two large fists. "I'm aiming to take my family vengeance with these."

  "A rumble." Logan considered the idea. It had been a while since he'd indulged in a good old-fashioned bar fight, and the idea of throwing some good hard punches lifted his spirits. Maybe that was just the medicine he needed tonight. "You know what?" he replied, grinning. "Right at this particular moment, I can't think of anything I'd like better than a rumble."